Bruno's

I’ve been at work for about a week now. My first day Bruno introduced me to my co-workers.

First, Bruno is always around but most of the time he’s upstairs in the office watching football or in the back lounge room with his favorite customers. Bruno is an older, fatherly-like guy who kind of seems like he would have mob connections, if I’m being honest. He calls me sweetheart but not in a condescending way and I like him a lot. He’s a helpful guy who really cares about his community; for example, he offers to keep house keys for people in the community in case they get locked out of their apartments late at night, there’s a giant cupboard of hundreds of keys in the back.

Brad is the guy I will mostly be working with and he’s a more experienced bartender so he’s sort of like my boss in a really, really informal way. Brad is a 25 year old rocker guy and has spiky black hair, wears leather wrist bands, band tees, studded pants and paints his fingernails black. He’s kind of hot, to be honest, in a bad-boy way.

Cara is also someone I am usually going to be working with but she’s not actually a bartender. She’s training to be one and Bruno is letting her apprentice in the bar. Her actual title is a bar back. Mostly she brings stuff from the stockroom so we don’t run out of anything at the bar and occasionally she waitresses to make more money when the kitchen is open. Cara is a cute 21 year old who attends school full time in addition to working at Bruno’s. She kind of looks like Amy from Futurama; black hair, cute button nose, and she’s super sweet, kind of like a little sister.

Tony is the cook in the back but saying I work at a restaurant or even a bar and grill is stretching it. We sell what essentially amounts to bowling alley food: onion rings, cheese burgers, fries, nachos, fried mushrooms, mozzarella sticks, etc. But Tony is a whiz in the kitchen and will make stuff for the staff that’s not on the menu. Last night he made me a grilled cheese that was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

“It’s the cheese,” He told me when I started swooning at how good it was, “I use a mixture of Harvati, Fontina, and smoked cheddar. Then I use a garlic herb butter to toast up the bread in the pan.”

Um, YUM.

Tony is a tall black man about the same age as Bruno. They grew up together and are close friends. We don’t get a lot of food orders, so Tony is usually hanging out with Bruno in the office or in the back lounge room. Brad told me that Bruno’s never used to serve food but Tony lost his job in the recession and was struggling to find any work to support his family (he’s got a wife and two kids in college) so Bruno offered him a job and bought a deep fryer (hence all the fried food we serve) and a very small grill. It actually turned out to be a great business plan because the bar is right next to one of the college campuses in this city and we get a TON of college kids coming in on the weekends who are drunk and hungry; apparently what we sell appeals to the binge-drinking twenty-something masses.

I like the vibe at Bruno’s and even though I don’t make nearly enough for rent or anywhere close to what I used to and I’ll need to get another job as soon as I settle in here, I feel like I fit in. I also like that I can dress casually for work. It was sometimes such a pain to have to wear nice, professional clothes to work every day.